doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com O.T. Aging game?

I have allowed a deer to hang for as long as 14 days in temperatures 35 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. In the most frequent years, I have aged the meat for around 4 to 5 days in a refrigerator. The shorter time is due to the limited space and the possibility of another deer harvest.

You should have skinned it. The hide is a very good insulator allowing an enormous amount of heat retention affecting the flavor and quality of the meat. Skin it then hang it to age. Cooling quicker = better eating.

PG: It was bitter cold on the opener, something like 11-degrees.

It was laid open for several hours in those temps & it froze like a brick that night in the back of my truck. Elk are much harder to cool down, no question, but an 80lb deer?

I'm guessing it will be allright in my 40-degree garage for a while now. I'll maybe skin it sooner and let it age the last few days like that.

I prefer to hang and age my deer when possible. It helps a lot if you do everything right. Slaughterhouses don't hang and age beef because they want to waste time or have lower quality. But it isn't often that you get the ideal conditions to do so.

Good tasting venison starts before you pull the trigger. I try to hunt mostly in places where the deer live close enough to agriculture to have a good diet. Deer that are browsing on quality feed like corn, clover, alfalfa, apples, white oak acorns, etc. are naturally going to have better quality meat than deep woods mountain deer that are browsing on lower quality wild grasses, various leaves, etc. If I have time after gutting, I usually slice the rumen open to see what it has been eating, and learned they'll travel a couple miles to get standing corn. Deer that are expending more calories climbing steep terrain won't have the same percentage of body fat as crop fed deer that are able to consume adequate quality food with minimal effort, and are spending more time resting and chewing their cuds. The same rules apply as for raising good quality beef cattle.

I strongly believe that it makes a big difference how you kill the animal. A farmer I know who raised very high quality beef that he sold to expensive N.Y.C. restaurants told me that he kept his cattle mostly confined so they weren't grazing and walking a lot to build up muscle. He fed them the highest quality feed, and said that when he slaughtered them, he did his best to keep them very calm, and gave them beer to drink so they would be very relaxed when they were killed. He said if they were alarmed or agitated, they would produce more adrenalin, and that would affect the taste and tenderness of the meat. So it goes with deer, elk, etc. If you gut shoot your deer, and it is suffering and alarmed while you are tracking it, that is going to adversely affect the meat. I like a high heart or aorta shot, because the lower chambers usually keep pumping. The deer's blood pressure drops to about zero immediately, and much of the blood is pumped out into the chest cavity. Death is immediate, or within seconds.

I don't field dress my deer. I always take the extra time to hog dress them, because opening the chest cavity and removing the heart, lungs, esophagus, trachea, etc. allows the carcass to cool much faster. You should be very careful to do a clean neat job. Any dirt, debris, stomach contents, or urine from a sloppy dressing job is going to introduce bacteria, which will lead to quick spoilage during any hanging and aging. Avoid getting any debris in the body cavity during dragging. Then you need those rare ideal hanging conditions. Since most of us don't have access to a large cooler like slaughterhouses use to age meat, the carcass should be hung in an unheated garage or shed, out of sunlight and wind. If temps are on the warmer side, getting the hide off quickly helps the meat cool, to reduce bacteria growth and spoilage. Then you need several days where the meat remains at refrigerator temperatures ( between 32° F and 36° F; never higher than 40° F) during the day, and doesn't get so cold at night that the meat freezes. It isn't often that you get those perfect temperature conditions for more than two or three days. I've only had those near perfect conditions last more than four or five days a few times in my entire hunting life, and was able to hang my deer eight days once. But even a day or two to get the blood out of the carcass is better than nothing, because rigor mortis may last 24 hours or more. I made a spreader to hang the carcass neck down, by the back legs, which helps keep the body cavity open for cooling, and allows blood to drain out of the better hindquarter and backstrap cuts. Excess blood in the meat is fine if you like steaks, chops, and roasts that taste like liver. I don't.

I think aging is a good idea if you have a means to keep it just above freezing. I have a dedicated fridge in my barn but that can be a problem because if it gets too cold at night it freezes and that's not the point of aging. I process most of my own deer and elk but when for whatever reason I need to take it to the processor they often have a lead time of several weeks and that might be good. But they also have perfect condition in their walk-in cooler. Aging is good when done right.

Aging meat down he'ah is done very cautiously. I have done it on game birds, but the trick here is to make sure it is cold enough to deter blowflies from "blowing" the meat, that is ... laying eggs on it. When that happens the eggs hatch and you have maggots. But, with the birds I aged I removed the entrails with a gut hook and hung them feathers on, by the head. I liked the result. As for deer, when I used to hunt them for sport I used local processors to cut them up and package the meat. I would always ask them to let the carcass hang in their cooler for about a week. Sometimes if they weren't real busy they would agree but other times, if they needed to get the carcass processed to make room for another, they would refuse. I really think it helps with venison.

Small game birds cannot be improved much by aging, IMO ... doves, quail, woodcock, etc. I love duck. I wonder if there is any benefit to aging ducks. I may try it.

The English were fond of hanging pheasant, a long time. I always loved the scene from Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, where he mimicked someone who said that the pheasant was "a bit high", or had been hung too long.

I've been aging geese for quite a long time. Hang them ungutted and fully feathered, head up in my root cellar, for at least 12 days. Sever legs and thighs and place in body cavity before a long slow roast @285F.

I think aging helps venison, improving both flavor and tenderness. Deer, unlike beef, need to be aged with the hide on, as deer don't have a thick layer of fat to keep the meat from drying out. 7 to 10 days is what I have done. I used to have access to a friend's refrigerated meat locker but don't any more. I have aged them hanging in my garage, but I don't often have cool enough temperatures in early November when I kill most of my deer so I usually use a processor. If I kill one around the Christmas and New Year holidays I will still age and butcher it myself if the weather cooperates.

I usually do the gutless method. You get 4 quarters and the backstraps and tenderloins without much risk of contamination and you're going to eventually quarter it anyway. Then go after the neck. Took the tongue this year but I haven't tried it yet. I think good game bags are important. If you can get the whole animal, great, but that's not happening most of the time around here. There is no way I can get a whole elk home. Usually, I can't get a whole deer home.

Mule deer taste way better than white-tailed deer. They just do. I don't know why. I think keith is correct about white-tailed diet. Not sure that applies as much to mules.

I have aged wood ducks in the refrigerator for a week and it makes a big difference in flavor and especially tenderness. I usually cook them whole in the pellet grill.